Guides: HSOC 0361 : Medical Missionaries and Partners: Reference Works

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology: health and illness in the world's cultures
Offers lengthy articles on medical anthropology topics worldwide, including comparative cultural perspectives on specific diseases and health conditions, and theoretical approaches to cross-cultural health research. Also presents lengthy "cultural portraits" of specific cultures, focusing on their medical beliefs: cultures are selected from the Encyclopedia of World Cultures.
International Encyclopedia of Public Health. 2nd ed.
An authoritative and comprehensive guide to the major issues, challenges, methods, and approaches of global public health. This encyclopedia covers all dimensions of the field, from details of specific diseases to the organization of social insurance agencies.

Mission statistics, atlases

World Christian Database
Directory and statistical information for present-day (1970- ) Christian denominations worldwide. Includes notes listing missions currently active in each country.
Directory of Protestant medical missions / Arthur W Marsh. Missionary Research Library, 1959.
Not at Penn. Request through BorrowDirect. (We are waiting for a digitized copy.)
Provides a statistical survey by continent and country, listing each mission with numbers of patients and staff.
World missionary atlas. Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1925.
Print only. Van Pelt stacks: BV4025 .B4
World atlas of Christian missions. Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 1911.
Print available. Online via HathiTrust.
Subtitle: "a directory of missionary societies, a classified summary of statistics, an index of mission stations, and maps showing the location of mission stations throughout the world". Good map reproductions. Based on:
• Statistical atlas of Christian missions : containing a directory of missionary societies, a classified summary of statistics, an index of mission stations, and a series of specially prepared maps of mission fields. World Missionary Conference, 1910. Online via HathiTrust.
A geography and atlas of Protestant missions : their environment, forces, distribution, methods, problems, results and prospects at the opening of the twentieth century / Harlan P Beach. 2 vols. Student volunteer movement for foreign missions, 1906
Online via HathiTrust. Vol. 1 : Geography (1901). Vol. 2 : Statistics and Atlas (1903).
Katholischer Missionsatlas : enthaltend die gesamten Missionsgebiete des Erdkreises / Karl Streit. Verlag der Missionsdruckerei, 1906.
Online via HathiTrust.
Centennial survey of foreign missions : a statistical supplement to "Christian missions and social progress" / James S Dennis. Fleming H. Revell Co., 1902.
Print at LIBRA; Online via HathiTrust.
The church missionary atlas. New ed. (8th). Church Missionary Society, 1896.
Starting with the 7th ed. (1887), this CMS atlas covered missions and missionary stations of other societies.
Neuer Missions-atlas, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der deutschen Missionen / R. Grundemann. Verlag der Vereinsbuchhandlung, 1896.
Online via HathiTrust.
Another in the Burkhardt-Grundemann series, with very nice maps. The latest edition of B-G seems to lack maps:
• Kleine Missions-Geographie und -Statistik zur Darstellung des Standes der evangelishen Mission am Schlus des 19. Jahrhunderts / R Grundemann. Verlag der Vereinsbuchhandlung, 1901.
Online via HathiTrust.
Les missions évangéliques depuis leur origine jusqu'à nos jours / G.E. Burkhardt & R. Grundemann. 4 vols. Georges Bridel Ed., 1884.
Onlline via HathiTrust.
vol. 2 = Africa. This is a translation of Dr. G.E. Burkhardt's Kleine Missions-Bibliothek. 2nd Aufl. Velhagen & Klasing, 1879-[1880] (in Fraktur, but with better maps).

Biographical Information

Use these biographical directories, registers, and dictionaries to identify physicians, surgeons, and nurses who served as missionaries. With personal names and biographical information, you can search contemporary magazines and newspapers for mentions.

Mission-specific Biographical Sources

Biographical dictionary of Christian missions
Print only : Van Pelt Library BV3700 .B56
Informative entries with bibliographies, with a special emphasis on native-born missionaries. Appendices list subjects by time period, gender, martyrdom, region of service, agencies and orders, and type of missionary work.
Register of missionaries : (clerical, lay, and female), and native clergy, from 1804 to 1894 / Church Missionary Society
Contains three lists : Clerical and lay missionaries (starting on page 1), Female missionaries (p. 260), Native clergy (p. 297).
One of several Church Missionary Society registers available online, together covering 1804 through 1928. Many CMS missionaries contributed reports to CMS periodicals.
HINT! Handwritten updates to the printed biographical entries are usually handwritten on the preceding or following (blank) page. If people named in a biographical entry are listed elsewhere in the Register, their Register serial number will be given.
Also see:
• Registers of missionaries, 1804-1928.
• Register of female missionaries, 1905-1918 (manuscript).
• Other CMS and C of E Zenana missionary directories
Vinton Books / John A. Vinton, comp.
Four volumes, typescript. (Congregational Library & Archives). Brief biographical information on Congregational missionaries under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), 1800s-1910. See also the Congregationalist Library's Obituary Database for bibliographic citations to death notices in Congregationalist periodicals.
HathiTrust : Directories/Registers of Missionaries
A messy HathiTrust search result that includes several directories of missionaries.
Dictionary of African Christian Biography
International mission bibliography, 1960-2000
Print only : Van Pelt Library BV2061 .I58 2003

General Biographical Sources

American National Biography
A source of biographical information on Americans of significance, both American and significance broadly defined. The one fast rule for inclusion is that the person must have died before 1996.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
A collection of current biographies on influential men and women in British history and culture, written by specialized authors.
African Biographical Dictionary. 2nd ed
World Biographical Information System Online
An index to biographical dictionaries, with worldwide coverage. Biographical search feature includes occupation searching.
Biography and Genealogy Master Index
An index to reference works with biographical information on multiple persons, focusing on late 19th- and early 20th-century Americans.
Ancestry Library
The library version of Ancestry.com
Use Ancestry Library to locate (not-yet, retired, or on leave) missionaries through their decennial census records or birth, death, and shipping-list records.